#19075
How Does the Institutional Home of a Program Affect its Development? 
Having the department of technical communication located within the School of Engineering has a significant impact on the program’s development.
Davis, Marjorie T. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>Engineering
#21563
How the Web Is Changing the Role of the Service Course 
The service course is undergoing another change in its role in the Technical Communication program. Over the years, the service course has evolved from a way of providing students with mastery of genre and style to a way of introducing students to their role as communicators in the rhetorical situation. The Web drives the new role evolving out of this solid past. The service course now provides students with a basis for independent creation. Programs must fill four key needs for students entering the job market. Students must: learn to learn; master the processes involved in creating information; learn applications quickly and graduate having mastered several; and understand information design.
Riordan, Dan. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Writing>Technical Writing
#26528
Identity, Research Funding, and Political Economy
Five presentations about supporting research, particularly for junior faculty, within the present funding and support structures offered by academic departments.
Rude, Carolyn D., Kelli Cargile Cook, Ryan M. Moeller, Cheryl E. Ball and Joanna Castner Post. CPTSC (2005). Presentations>Management>Research
#19097
If You Build It, Will They Come? The Importance of Promoting Technical/Professional Writing Programs
Although the field of technical/professional writing continues to grow apace with the demand for its graduates, a large number of people, especially students, have never heard of it, or, if they've heard of it, have no idea what it is. Consequently, our program has begun an aggressive promotional campaign.
Patterson, Celia. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA>Marketing
#22177
The Impact of Current Trends on TCOM Curricula
Rapidly changing processes in internationalization, in emerging technologies, and in instructional delivery systems require program directors and faculty to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate the extent to which they consider these changes in curricula development. This evaluation should not necessarily result in curricula molded in the image of industry, for many changes in technological processes are ephemeral.
Rainey, Kenneth T. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Presentations>Education>TC
#23381
Institutional Boundaries and Finding a Voice in Emerging Technical Communication Programs
The border between institution types has long been a site of conflict and interest in the field of technical communication. One related border is becoming increasingly important: the border(s) between a diversifying range of institutions interested in technical communication and the PhD-granting institutions supplying them with teachers/scholars.
Knievel, Michael. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>TC
#22446
Institutionally Mapping Professional Writing
We think it is critically important-especially in a time of declining budgets-for professional writing programs to position themselves in a vital and robust location in the university, and probably outside it as well. What institutional location(s) can best guarantee that professional writing thrive, and also provide it an opportunity to have significant impact?
Grabill, Jeffrey T. and James E. Porter. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Business Communication
#26529
Interdisciplinary/Inter-Program Research
Two presentations about collaboration in research between diverse departments and units.
Brady, Ann, Robert R. Johnson, Michael J. Salvo and Tammy S. Conard-Salvo. CPTSC (2005). Presentations>Collaboration>Research
#21827
International Technical Communication Programs and Global Ethics 
International technical communication program developers may face globalization either with fear or exhilaration. Is globalization primarily an economic process that will bring unprecedented opportunity, prosperity, democracy, and health to everyone in the world? Or is it a process that will usurp the autonomy of national and local governments, colonize the cultural diversity of the world, lay waste to ecosystems, and gobble up the resources of the entire planet?
Savage, Gerald J. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Ethics>International
#22445
Efforts to create joint programs with universities in foreign countries are evidence that internationalization is imperative. One such effort is the professional writing program at Fairfield University that recently established an international partnership with the Universidad de la Habana in Cuba.
Sapp, David Alan. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>International>Cuba
#23372
Intertwining Structures of Assessment and Support: Assessing Programs-Advancing the Profession
In my recent experience as an external assessor invited to participate in San Francisco State University's Technical Communication Program assessment, I felt that surely the process taught me more than I was able to provide in return.
Herrington, TyAnna K. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Assessment
#15022
Is the Future Identity of Technical Communication Specialization or Diversity?
Technology has paradoxically expanded and contracted technical communication. With the expansion of jobs, particularly in computer documentation and Web development, the demand for academic programs to graduate these workers has also increased. In turn the demand for graduate programs to prepare the teachers for those programs has expanded. Even the growth of international communication as an area of study has followed largely from the export of technology.
Rude, Carolyn D. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Presentations>TC>Education
#13907
Is There a Place for Technical Communication in the Public Sphere?
Programs in technical communication have, at least in their recent history, emphasized the preparation of students for corporate positions. We claim the ubiquity and relevance of our work to all areas of life, and indeed it is easy enough to find examples of 'technical communication' everywhere. But this observation is not the same as observing that there is a role for technical communicators everywhere.
Rude, Carolyn D. CPTSC Proceedings (2002). Presentations>TC>Cultural Theory
#19074
A Layered Literacies Frame for Articulating Program Goals
Anyone who presumes to use language for workplace tasks and problem-solving will need literacies beyond the formal ones traditionally and historically at the center of technical communication programmatic instruction. Today’s technical and scientific communication students must possess multiple literacies to be successful in the dynamic workplaces they will enter, no matter what their chosen specialties&endash;environmental, safety, medical, information technology, or multimedia writing. To meet students’ needs whether they enter programs for a single course or a course of study, I propose a pedagogical frame for articulating technical communication program goals. This frame is defined in terms of six key literacies--basic, rhetorical, social, technological, ethical, and critical.
Cargile Cook, Kelli. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>TC
#21549
Legal Communication in Technical Communication Programs: Worth Thinking About?
What, if anything, should technical communication programs teach their students about the nature of law and the production of legal discourse? When is technical writing also legal writing, and vice versa; when is legal writing (really) technical? Are there distinctions worth maintaining and dissolving here? Do lawyers' relationships to, and problems with, legal writing contexts and processes parallel in important ways technical writers' relationships to, and problems with, technical writing contexts and processes? If they do, is a conversation between the disciplines worth institutionalizing, at least experimentally, in each other's programs?
Stratman, James F. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Business Communication>Legal>Technical Writing
#13909
Lest We Think the Revolution Is a Revolution: Images of Technology and the Nature of Change
When technical communication teachers get together to talk about technology, they generally end up talking about change. It is common sense, after all to link computers with change when microprocessors now double in speed every 18 months (Patterson, 1995), when biomemory, superscalar architecture, and picoprocessors become feature stories for National Public Radio; and when media generations flash by in less time than it takes to uncrate a faculty workstation and get rid of the Styrofoam packing.
Selfe, Cynthia L. CPTSC Proceedings (1995). Presentations>Technology>History>Rhetoric
#23382
Looking for Trouble: Moments of Crisis in a Professional Writing Curriculum
As a new director of a new Professional Writing program, my colleagues and I spent much of our time designing curriculum. The sequence and content of our courses, we felt, were the only real way to make our program more than the sum of its parts.
Franke, David. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Academic>Education>Management
#23366
Making it Fit: Teaching Online Information Design in Two Programs with One Course
To serve students in an interdisciplinary minor in Interactive Media as well as our own concentrators in business and technical writing within the department, we developed a course in designing online information.
Worley, Rebecca B. and Deborah C. Andrews. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Education>Information Design
#21817
Service learning and client-based projects more generally are widely recognized as effective methods of engaging technical communication students in the complexities of workplace writing. But administrators of large technical communication programs often face an uphill battle when attempting tointegrate these projects into the curriculum.
Smith Taylor, Summer. CPTSC Proceedings (2001). Articles>Education>Service Learning
#13889
The Need for Architect/Construction Worker Dichotomies in Information Architecture as a Profession
I would suggest that before we adopt the 'information architect' model and concede the construction worker (role of 'other') to many members of our field in order to negotiate management positions for a few, that we look to other professions to see how they have resisted this dichotomy. It may be argued, perhaps, that professions such as medicine and the law have managed to avoid successfully such hierarchical dichotomies -- at least in part. At the least, we should debate the possible implications of such systems more rigorously than we have to date.
Sauer, Geoffrey. CPTSC Proceedings (2002). Presentations>Information Design>Workplace
#26535
Two collaborative presentations about the status and factors that influence technology adoption within research in technical communication programs.
Amidon, Stevens R., Stuart Blythe, Libby Allison, Miriam Williams and Meloni McMichael. CPTSC (2005). Presentations>Multimedia>Technology
#19076
As faculty and administrators responsible for program implementation continue to explain to each other how engineers, computer programmers, business managers, and technical communicators view the world, I hope that a new and genuinely collaborative, interdisciplinary program will emerge. The resulting opportunities for students will--I hope--be worth the trouble.
Ecker, Pamela S. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Academic>Education>WPA
#19108
One Perspective: Blurring the Distinction Between Writer and Trainer
In a recent round of discussion on an American Society for Training and Development chat list, corporate trainers discussed the diverse skills they needed to do their jobs well. Requests for assistance and advice evidenced the trainers’ concerns about their writing skill levels. In my own position as a corporate trainer I found myself training in classrooms three days a week and writing the other two. Handling new projects meant not only training the participants but also developing the materials that would be used. At the same time, existing materials needed updates or corrections to remain current with policies, procedures, and technology. The reliability of such information professionally affected the training department to a large degree. Consequently, writing and updating training-related documentation became the primary responsibility of the training department. Our role as trainers had expanded to include information management.
Van Dyne, Jenna. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Writing>Instructional Design
#20492
Because technical communication involves the knowledge of technology, expertise is associated with anything practical. I've come to think about this battle in terms of what my colleague Allan Heaps used to call the PageMaker Guy. In practical terms, the PageMaker Guy is the person in an organization or a group who 'knows' how to use technology, who can fix other people's technological messes, or who sacrifices valuable research time helping other people use technology. The PageMaker Guy is a phenomenon for which a person is anointed. Those of us in 'PageMaker Guy' situations often resent this role because it subsumes our identity to the extent that we fear our colleagues might ignore the depth of knowledge necessary for this role as well as our equally deserved scholarly accomplishments.
Bridgeford, Tracy. CPTSC Proceedings (2003). Careers>Academic>Workplace
#19094
Technical Communication pedagogies that are informed by theories of Participatory Design offer new challenges and opportunities for both the assessment of student work and group projects, and in the evaluation of programmatic goals.
Moore, Michael R. CPTSC Proceedings (2000). Articles>Education>TC>Participatory Design
